Cube of Darkness
The Cube of Darkness was a mysterious relic that made its debut in Sanctum of Blood during "The Eclipse War" saga of the Roach Chronicles, and later plays a major part in the following saga "Age of the Soulless". It was created out of Master Ronin's body that was overloading from the raw darkness of the Dark Realm that he currently housed within himself. History The Eclipse War Sanctum of Blood In an attempt to both gain immortality and defeat the four heroes of the Eclipse Universe, Master Ronin began absorbing the darkness within the Matter Orb, which extracted its power directly from the Dark Realm. However, when the heroes still proved to be too much for him to handle and began to taunt him, Ronin furiously kept absorbing more and more power until he violently shattered the Matter Orb on the floor, to which he then absorbed the remaining darkness that was contained in the relic. This however proved to be a fatal mistake, as Ronin soon collapsed onto the floor in pain. As he questioned what was going on, parts of his body began to glow purple as a rift to the Dark Realm opened above him. Suddenly, the rift began to pull Ronin's soul from his body, forcefully pulling it into the Dark Realm. After letting out one last scream of horror, Ronin's soul was pulled into the Dark Realm, where it was soon merged with the realm itself, granting Ronin the eternal life he sought, but as a permanent fixture of the Dark Realm for all of eternity. After Ronin's soul left his body, Ronin's body was overtaken by the darkness within it, causing it to be engulfed by the darkness, morphing his body down into the Cube of Darkness. Upon being created, the cube levitated into the air on its own before entering the rift into the Dark Realm, causing the rift to close immediately upon entering it. Within the Dark Realm, the cube would then receive tremendous power, acting as a source for infinite dark energy from the Dark Realm. After floating around the realm for sometime, the cube's runes on its sides began to glow dark purple as the cube seemingly activated. Age of the Soulless Forgotten Past After successfully ambushing SEAL Team Five and The Librarian within the Library of Divination, Echthroi, the leader of the Prophets of the Soulless, was able to procure the Book of Rituals from The Librarian. With the book, a new ritual appears, once that displays the Cube of Darkness and its seven runes along with a ritual to summon the Cube of Darkness to the reader's location, but could only be performed once. Performing the ritual, Echthroi is able to summon the Cube of Darkness from the Dark Realm, but before he can grab it, The Librarian blasts him aside with some of his magic, allowing SEAL Team Five to break free from their captors holding them down. Rook soon grabs ahold of the cube, causing the cube to imprint its seven runes along his metal arm. With the cube in the heroes' possession, The Librarian teleports them away, allowing them to escape with the cube. Furious over this, Echthroi proceeds to finish off The Librarian after regaining his senses, ordering his men to begin "Phase 2" while he personally goes after the cube, teleporting away as the rest of the library burns to ash as a result of Echthroi's initial attack in the ambush. Frozen Pride Sometime later after being teleported out of the burning Library of Divination, both SEAL Team Five and the Cube of Darkness are discovered by a US arctic expeditionary team near the northern coastline of Antarctica. The arctic team soon brings the four aboard their research ship, the USS Statesman, and plots a course to return home immediately. After a day of recovering, the SEAL team informs the ship's crew of what occurred, saying that they must bring the Cube of Darkness to a secure location in order to prevent Echthroi from discovering its location. Unknown to everyone aboard the ship, Echthroi soon discovered the cube's location after tracking its energy source it was emitting through his connections with darkness. Two days later, as the ship continued onward towards the United States in the midst of a snowy night, Echthroi began his plan to re-secure the cube from the heroes. Sneaking into the cargo hold, Echthroi is able to locate the Cube of Darkness in a locked safe. Telekinetically ripping open the safe door, Echthroi grabs ahold of the cube. Upon activating it, it unleashes a powerful shockwave that soon disables the ship's engines, leaving the ship dead in the water, as well as infecting the crew located in the lower levels. As Echthroi orders his minions to destroy the rest of the survivors, he begins to examine the cube, tapping into its powers in order to unveil an easier way to complete the next steps in his plan. Echthroi is soon transported to a vision like dream world, where he discovers that the best location to resurrect the Dark Soldier was within a secure location within Limbo, which could only be accessed by creating a gateway with a large amount of cursed blood from a being who had previously wielded the cube's power. Meanwhile, the SEAL team finds themselves fighting for their lives as they desperately attempt to escape the overrun ship and secure the cube. The team soon finds Echthroi in the cargo hold with the cube and engages him in a fight. However, as the team moves in to check on him after defeating him, he soon springs up and grabs ahold of Rook. Echthroi begins to laugh, saying that with everything needed to complete his plan ready, the Dark Soldier would soon be reborn in the coming days. After using the Cube of Darkness to breach the hull of the ship, Echthroi teleports away with Rook as his prisoner. Gateway Echthroi utilizes the Cube of Darkness to create more zombies in order to distract SEAL Team Five long enough for him and his army to escape. Echthroi soon brings the Cube of Darkness with him as he and the Prophets of the Soulless utilize the rift created by Rook's cursed blood to travel to the Temple of Resurrection in Limbo. Darkness Rises While SEAL Team Five and Axel Miller, the newly formed Soulless of Alex "Rook" Miller, were underground upon reaching Limbo, Echthroi and the Prophets are within the Temple of Resurrection reciting a spell within the Book of Rituals to open a rift to the Dark Realm in order to begin the process of resurrecting the Dark Soldier. With the Cube of Darkness on a central altar in the middle of the chamber, the cube begins to charge up with dark energy the more Echthroi reads the spell. Knowing they have to stop the Prophets, the team continues through the cave network, fighting through zombies created by the cube. After the team enters the temple, the cube finishes charging up, sending a beam of darkness into the sky and creating a portal to the Dark Realm. Echthroi soon signals one of his men, who then proceeds to bring out the Soul Jar and hands it to Echthroi. Echthroi soon opens the top of the jar and proceeds to release the imprisoned souls of Roach and Xarcoh. Laughing in victory, Echthroi explains to the souls that it was time to resurrect the two as the Dark Soldier, sending their souls into the Dark Realm. At that moment, a purple lighting bolt then strikes the Cube of Darkness, causing it to rapidly pulsate. Ignoring the bolt as simply part of the ritual, Echthroi begins to recite the spell to resurrect the Dark Soldier. Unknown to anyone, the bolt would later be revealed to be Master Ronin's soul returning to what remained of his body. Suddenly, SEAL Team Five enters the chamber, ordering the Prophets to stop. Shocked at their untimely arrival, Echthroi orders his men to destroy them as he continues with the spell. As the team fights off against the Prophets, Echthroi continues to recite the spell, causing everyone great pain except Axel, whom was unaffected. Axel then realizes that the spell would turn anyone in the proximity of the spell into Soulless. As everyone but Axel and Echthroi collapsed to the ground, Axel then engages Echthroi in hand-to-hand combat. As the echoing laugh of the Dark Soldier could be heard emerging from the portal, Axel is able to overpower Echthroi, throwing him into the central altar, breaking it and causing the Cube of Darkness to fall onto the ground, causing the Dark Soldier to scream out in pain from within the portal. Horrified over this, Echthroi explains that the Dark Soldier was nearly finished crossing the Ethereal Divide, saying that if he wants to ensure the Dark Soldier arrives, a sacrifice must be made. Punching Axel aside, Echthroi calls out to the Dark Soldier, saying he was willing to sacrifice himself to allow the Dark Soldier to finish crossing the divide. As Axel gets up from the ground, he sees Echthroi slowly walking over to where the central altar was. Suddenly, Echthroi is engulfed in a beam of darkness, causing him to scream out in pain. Horrified, Axel could only watch as Echthroi melted away into a dark essence, which soon ascended the beam and into the portal. The beam then soon vanished, with the sounds of thunder being heard as it echoed across the realm. As everyone else, now turned into Soulless, got up from the ground, a bright dark purple ball of energy shot out from the portal, landing in the center of the chamber. As the portal to the Dark Realm closed, the ball manifested itself into the Dark Soldier, who soon began to laugh out in victory. The Dark Soldier After finishing his laugh, the Dark Soldier picks up the Cube of Darkness and walks over to the temple's balcony, where he comments to everyone that the darkness in Limbo was weak and pitiful, stating that with his powers he was able to acquire from the Dark Realm, he would be able to show all universes what it feels to be part of eternal darkness forever. As the Prophets rejoice over his monologue and welcome the arrival of their new master, Axel quietly regroups with the other members of SEAL Team Five, who were turned into their Soulless counterparts, although they retained their selfhood and weren't corrupted like they originally were. Axel suggests they flee until they devise a new plan, but as they attempted to leave the room, the Dark Soldier telekinetically slammed the door shut on them. The Dark Soldier soon comments on SEAL Team Five's transformation into Soulless, saying that it was good to see "his old allies" in their true forms. The team asks what he planned on doing with them, questioning if he would kill them. The Dark Soldier replies that he would never truly hurt his friends, saying that he would merely test them to see their true worthiness to him. Using his powers, the Dark Soldier engulfs the area in darkness, transporting himself, SEAL Team Five, and his army to the Chamber of Darkness. At the Chamber of Darkness, the Dark Soldier hides the Cube of Darkness in a secret compartment within the chamber's hedge maze, where it would be found by SEAL Team Five as part of the Dark Soldier's trial. Bringing the Cube of Darkness to the throne room, the four utilize it to destroy the forcefield. When the final battle against the Dark Soldier raged on, the Dark Soldier continuously used his powers to block the team's attacks, saying that their weapons weren't powerful enough to stop the darkness, explaining that they would soon sleep in eternal darkness. As the Dark Soldier laughs yet again, this gives the team an idea as they pull out the Cube of Darkness, which suddenly shocks the Dark Soldier. Before he could react, the team begin to use the cube to shoot out beams of darkness, which begin to harm the Dark Soldier. Frustrated that his own darkness was being used against him, the Dark Soldier begins to charge towards the team, forcing them to launch one last powerful attack with the cube. Sending out a massive beam, it soon pierces through the Dark Soldier's chest, causing him to stop in his tracks and collapse to the ground while severely weakening the team. As the team looks back towards the Dark Soldier, they are shocked to see him getting back up and begin to slowly walk towards the team. To their surprise, the Dark Soldier begins to plea with them, saying that if they destroy him, then all of his influence would be erased, which by extent would also erase them from existence as well. As the team nods to each other, Axel replies that they were willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the universes before shoving the Cube of Darkness into his open chest wound. Using the last of their strength, the team use the Cube of Darkness to send devastating amounts of energy throughout the Dark Soldier's body. As the Dark Soldier lets out one last scream, Xirsch tells the others that it was an honor to serve with them for all these years. As a bright light begins to form inside his chest wound, the Dark Soldier solemnly replies to Xirsch's comment, saying that he was sorry for what he has done. Soon, the entire area is engulfed in a blinding light, which soon explodes, sending a bright shockwave across the universe, purging it of the Dark Soldier's darkness. Back at the Dark Island, the entire Chamber of Darkness was destroyed; all that remained was some of it stonework. In the midst of these ruins was the Cube of Darkness, which managed to survive the aftermath of the battle. As the sun broke through the cloud layer and shined upon the world, the cube began to pulse and flash once again as Master Ronin began to faintly laugh from within it. Balance and Order Following the destruction of the Dark Soldier and the deaths of SEAL Team Five, the Central Intelligence Agency traveled to the Dark Island in order to covertly investigate the recent events that transpired there. While searching the ruins of the Chamber of Darkness, an agent discovered the Cube of Darkness beneath a pile of debris before calling for his advisor to see what he had found. In the following days, the Cube of Darkness was transported from the Dark Island to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. There, the US Government began to secretly experiment with the Cube of Darkness, siphoning off the cube's raw power to create experimental weaponry. Simultaneously, the US Government were in the midst of creating Project Pax, the successor to the failed Omnitron project that transpired months earlier. While scientists were able to create an artificial body for the project, there were unable to fully finish the project and create a pure sentient artificial intelligence due to the lack of advanced materials and resources. However, as the experiments with the Cube of Darkness continued on, many of the scientists began to hear the voice of Master Ronin from within the cube. Ronin soon began to communicate with the scientists, explaining that deep within the cube was an essence strong and powerful enough that could power Project Pax and give the A.I. unfathomable information that the United States government never dreamt of ever learning of other worlds and universes. Though skeptical of the voice at first, the scientists eventually complied with the offer and began to directly siphon off the essence from within the cube and into P.A.X.'s mind and systems. After the transfer was completed, the voice ceased communications and P.A.X. immediately awoke, greeting the scientists, who begin to celebrate over their achievement. About a week later, the scientists began to run tests with P.A.X. and his abilities. P.A.X. proved to be a worthy combatant and tactician, often offering strategic advice and suggestions for the government. While all seemed fair, things would soon take a turn for the worst. Deep within P.A.X.'s artificial subconscious was Master Ronin's soul, who would soon begin to use his powers to merge with P.A.X. in the form of a virus. As the virus soon took full control over P.A.X.'s systems and corrupted him, Ronin would soon allow himself to become reborn through the use of P.A.X., using the A.I.'s body as his new vessel. Now physical for the first time in over a month, Ronin soon used his newfound body and knowledge provided by the US Government to slaughter most of the staff in the Pentagon's labs. Seizing the Cube of Darkness and some of the experimental weaponry and technology, Ronin soon departed from the Pentagon as he set forth a new plan to conquer the universes. Ronin later arrives at Shop 8, an abandoned naval station located in the Caspian Sea off the coast of Kaspiysk, Russia. Using the stolen technology, Ronin soon begins to modify the station to serve as his new base of operations. While this happens, Ronin also uses the Cube of Darkness to spawn a legion of Cube Monsters to serve as his new army. With his new army, Ronin explains to his anxious army that he plans to forever reshape the universes into his own image, saying that even if he is to be taken out, his plan would still come to fruition. Ronin soon unveils his plans for Project Medusa, saying that with his artificial knowledge combined with his own, Ronin was able to devise a plan to create a polarization doomsday weapon capable of targeting organic life at random, allowing him to neutralize most of humanity on a cataclysmic scale and enabling him and his forces to enslave the survivors as part of a new galactic empire that would soon travel to distant planets, remodifying the Medusa weapon to target the inhabitants of those specific planets and repeating their plan. To ensure the completion of Project Medusa, Ronin tasks him army with locating and securing the Cortex bioweapon, which served as the key in triggering the Medusa weapon's psionic blasts. After Ronin and his forces captured Amici, Ronin explains his past to them, recalling the events of when his physical form was turned into the Cube of Darkness, his soul's return to the Cube of Darkness, and the US Government's acquisition of the relic. After acquiring the Cortex from Ball's Pyramid, Ronin uses the Cube of Darkness to open a dark portal that would allow his submarine to teleport to Shop 8. Upon teleporting, Ronin soon went onto the submarine's intercom, where he rallied the last of his Cube Monsters to fight off Amici before they arrived. As Amici armed up and fought against waves of the Cube Monsters, they steadily continued towards the bridge of the submarine, where they discovered Ronin had barricaded the door shut. Mac then orders Gary to use a kicker charge to breach the door, having collected one from the submarine's armory. As the explosive went off, the four breached the room, where they were able to destroy the rest of the Cube Monsters on the bridge, but unaffecting Ronin, who soon charged at them and engaged them in hand-to-hand combat. As they battled, Ronin told Amici to give up, saying that he seeks to balance out the world and enact revenge on the Aetherians for taking everything from him. However, because everyone was fighting at the same time, no one was controlling the submarine as it barreled right into one of the support beams of Shop 8, disabling the submarine as it rammed into the concrete beam. With Amici momentarily defeated, Ronin grabbed the Cube of Darkness and the Cortex before exiting the submarine and ascending Shop 8. Amici soon got up from the ground and chased after Ronin, pursuing him around Shop 8. Finally, Ronin was able to reach the roof of the complex, where he inserted the Cortex into the Medusa device. As the device warmed up, Amici cornered Ronin, saying that what he was doing would cause devastating consequences around the universes. Ronin explains that everything he ever loved was taken from him, saying that there was nothing stopping him from doing the same to all who crossed paths with him. Ronin soon rips open his chest plating, where he soon pulled out the Cube of Darkness and place it in a secret slot, granting Ronin tremendous powers. Ronin soon engages Amici in a final battle as the Medusa device continued charging in the background. As Ronin overpowered Mac, Gary, and Doc, he taunted to them that there was nothing they could do, saying that he hoped that they would be destroyed once the weapon activated. As Ronin laughed in victory, Rick was able to ambush Ronin with a machete, where he was able to stab Ronin through the back, slicing his circuitry and piercing through the Cube of Darkness. As the Cube of Darkness began to violently crack, Ronin merely laughed, saying that they've doomed humanity, explaining that without him, there was nothing they could do to disable the Medusa weapon. As he turned around and grabbed Rick, he threw him across the platform back towards the others, knocking them onto the ground. As Ronin cackled to himself one last time, the Cube of Darkness violently exploded within him, destroying both Ronin and the Cube of Darkness once and for all. Despite this outcome, Ronin's plan would still succeed, as the Medusa weapon was able to activate, successfully wiping out 75% of all life on Earth, including all of the members of Amici apart from Mac, who would later travel to the Arc 2 universe with the assistance of Novus in search of a way to undo Ronin's actions. The Sentinel Trials Prologue While the Cube of Darkness doesn't physically appear in the saga, it appears in Mac's flashback of the final battle against Master Ronin atop Shop 8. Gallery Cube of Darkness.jpg|The Cube of Darkness as it takes shape for the first time. Category:The Eclipse War Category:Age of the Soulless Category:Balance and Order Category:The Sentinel Trials